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The Maine Community Foundation quietly redirected nearly $1.9 million raised after the horrific Oct. 25 Lewiston shootings into a package of local nonprofits, and the community is rightly furious. Donors gave those dollars to help victims and families heal, not to bankroll a broad array of programs selected behind closed doors.
According to foundation records, the Broad Recovery & Organizations Fund sent equal payments to 29 groups in the Lewiston area, with each nonprofit receiving roughly $65,522 to use as they saw fit. Some of the recipient organizations focus on services for immigrant and refugee communities, which many residents say strays from the intent of a fund publicly promoted as relief for shooting survivors.
Local survivors and taxpayers have loudly questioned why roughly $4.7 million went directly to victims while nearly $1.9 million was parceled to nonprofits, a decision that smells like mission drift at best and misdirection at worst. People who lost loved ones or were traumatized in that massacre deserve full transparency about why donations were split this way and who made those calls.
Worse still, the steering committee that decided where the nonprofit portion would go included leaders from organizations that ultimately received checks, creating an unmistakable conflict of interest. That overlap between decision-makers and beneficiaries is exactly the kind of cozy arrangement that erodes public trust and demands an independent review.
Even more alarming: at least one organization that received a payment has since been publicly accused of MaineCare fraud, raising the specter that donated relief dollars might have landed in the hands of groups under serious legal cloud. Donors deserve to know whether their contributions ended up supporting the vulnerable—or propping up entities facing criminal allegations.
Conservative Americans who value charity, accountability, and the rule of law should be the loudest in demanding answers now: a full, transparent audit of the fund, public disclosure of steering-committee communications, and, if warranted, referrals to law enforcement. This isn’t about partisan politics; it’s about honoring victims, defending donors, and ensuring that charitable trust isn’t siphoned into insider networks. The people of Lewiston deserve better, and any charity that betrays that trust must be exposed and held to account.
